The first battles of a war are bloodless, soundless, heartless affairs.
But there is also something else that takes shape before the war begins. As truth collides with lies, you try to discern what is and what isn't, and what is a loose act of deception from what is being hidden from your eyes. Everything coalesces into a miasma of chaos. From that slurry, you must distinguish all the colors and all the details and place your bids, because they are bids. Nothing is ever known in its totality. Even an individual self-deceives, and the reasons are too multitude and myriad to account for.
But one must gamble. There is no other choice; there is no deciding not to. For if you do not bid, someone else will, and the one who refuses will be acted upon, and they will always be the war prize of the victor.
To abdicate means to make victory an impossibility.
Risk it all again and again, dive deeper, drink in the waters, and try to separate the filth from the flavor by taste alone.
Send in your pawns, sacrifice them, expend your advantage, and hunt down theirs.
Learn the truth, as much of it as you can, and decide, always decide.
Bid, bid, bid.
Fire the first shot, or at least fire back after the first blow descends out.
Even if you must bleed, do not do it alone. Even if you are to die, make sure no one emerges whole.
Join the war before the war with the heartless, the useless, the spent, the liars already setting things up, already dancing before the curtains rise and the first soliloquy is imparted, and stay even after the curtain falls.
The war between wars is never over. There is always the next war. The next lie. The next deception.
—Parable for Spies, New Albion Recruitment Primer
VIII-5
The Battle After the Battle
Though Gate Piety’s outer Abyssal defense forces readied themselves, the second push never came.
The aggressors of the third offensive retreated behind their lines, casting wards upon the air, creating mirages, illusions, blockades, and other magics to spare themselves from a counter-offensive. And they truly were taking up defensive postures. Adam’s divine Awareness, branded upon the Burned Ones and thousands of other enemy Pathbearers, confirmed the unbelievable truth: this offensive was finished.
Enemy elites were rotated off the battlefield and segregated between the Awareness-compromised and still reliable. The rest of their forces remained in place but held to a passive posture that would respond if Gate Piety's forces closed in, but not otherwise. They dug new trench lines, created additional fortifications, and established even more fallback positions—leading all the way to a chain of rear operating bases guarded by Court Leviathans and other fast-response detachments.
Their shift in combat posture was extreme, beyond dramatic. One moment they were throwing everything they had at Gate Piety for what felt like everything. Millions had been given over to the slaughter. Callousness and attrition were the order of the day. Now they were fighting like they wanted to trade space for time, space for lives. It was like they saw themselves as the ones on the defensive, rattling Gate Piety. How absurd this was—a humiliating thing.
The First Blood, Compact, the Vultegs… Each one was a nation possessed of considerable power in its own right. Two among the three considered themselves empires. To show their belly and nakedly bleed in front of a single city-state would have been unthinkable in almost any other situation.
But Gate Piety wasn't any other situation. It was a Unique Gate guarded by three Legendary-Unique Pathbearers, further supplemented by an additional legion of Legends, Heroes, novel skills, and more volunteers flooding in with each passing day. An international coalition army was forming, one made up of surfacers and Abyssals, monsters and individuals. Yellowstone nobles fought alongside Dragon-Knights and Weaveresses alike, pushing back against the invaders for coin or prestige—more often the latter. For a few, they were drawn forth by another calling, a higher drive. Adam was a Demi-Saint of the Republic now. It didn't mean he was recognized as a full god. Veronica saw special promise in what he offered and thus was trying to encode him into the Ascendancy's canon—even at the risk of the Songbringer’s ire.
Beyond the renegade orcs, hundreds of disparate Pathbearers arrived with a single wish: to join the Order of the Flaming Eye—to enforce the tyranny of justice upon a lawless world festering with the vile and unclean. Most of their number suffered visions at the will of the System, revelations of where to go and who to seek. And the name itself was imposed upon Adam, defined and christened based on his divine skill, that singular skill that only he could possess.
He, and no other.
Most of them arrived underleveled, with vengeance in their hearts and scars on their backs. Former slaves most often, but other types of victims besides. Yet there were few among their ranks that were High-Tier and of a different disposition. They were haunted by something they had done. They were stained by a fallacy of their past, and when they arrived before Adam, they burned in flesh and soul, for they were not pure like their weaker counterparts. But they were noble of intent and sought to boil away the wrongness that defined their past.
The Order-to-be was placed away from the front lines at present. They were untested, raw, and with far too many wounds that leaned toward individual or organizational collapse. At present, they stood with the bulk of Gate Piety's defenders: surrounding the core of the dimension where the dormant Tutorial gateway lay and the Peacehold rose to brush the crystal skies.
That might have been the ultimate reason why the second push didn't manifest, because driving Gate Piety's defenders back through the gateway was supposed to be the easy part. They were outnumbered in terms of High-Tier Pathbearers and raw quantity of chaff. With every single offensive that transpired, defeat followed the invaders. Defeat hounded them, defeat became them as they dashed themselves against Gate Piety’s outer defenses, yet proved themselves a glass hammer meeting a pebble of iron.
Such was the general opinion as the troops conducted their after-action report of the battle.
The Favored Three were of a shared, more paranoid mind.
“My assessment stands. They had an opening. They chose not to take it. They chose to dissolve their offense and wait.” Uva paused as she scanned the other representatives present inside the Farnest Council Chamber. The meeting room, once meant to suit only a few, had been expanded dramatically, and the subterranean base was upgraded several times over, becoming something of a political and militaristic forum for all members of the Gate Piety Coalition to send forth representatives and bring up pressing matters that affected them and, by extension, the Gate itself.
“Could just be a morale thing,” suggested Captain Jane Ircanos of the Republic Polymagi. “We lost 6,013 people. 6,013 for 16 million. That's a pretty nasty trade. Frankly, I think this is the nastiest trade ever seen. The way we've been killing them, you'd think that they're the single city-state and we're the empire. As it turns out, all you need to make up for multi-magnitude outnumbering is an albino elf with a big imagination, a Demi-Saint with a Domain of Voyeurism, and a man-shaped natural disaster who treats death like I do naps.”
Her glibness attracted a glare from the representative next to her. Master-Advisor Coulson was an all-business, all-loyalty yes-man, one of Veronica's personal patsies when it came to the political sport of influence and domination. Comparatively, Ircanos was more of a firebrand who cared little about politics. She spoke her mind with little to no concern about consequences and delivered on results every single time. But it wasn't weird that they both ended up here. After all, Veronica needed someone weak-willed enough that she could control and rely on at any point, and also useless enough that she could spend him without any concern. Ircanos, meanwhile, would have been wasted by some intra-Republic intrigue between noble houses.
“The pawn and the knight share a destination and directive—but are worlds apart when it comes to use.” So Veronica claimed as she taught Shiv chess—and so she showed through the assets she bestowed.
“Potentially, but highly unlikely,” Adam rebuffed. “Shiv: remind the representatives of the socio-cultural and aggregate individual psychological assessment of our enemies.”
Shiv nodded on reflex and kept nodding for two seconds longer before he realized he had actually been called on. He still wasn't used to it, holding a governmental position and being bestowed so much official responsibility. Everything he did before was more of his own volition, driven to support his Gate and his people. But ultimately, without structure or specific directives... what a difference two months could make.
Legend-Emissary Shiv of Piety stood, clearing his throat. “Our enemies share symmetrical mythology in terms of culture and behavior. Everyone at the top has value: those with power, with resources, with connections, and they're the ones that make decisions and control the narrative. My fellow Pathbearers, we are dealing with the bastard children born of plutocracies, oligarchies, and kakistocracies.” He chuckled. “Love how that last one sounds.
“To put things simply, that means that they're top-heavy when it comes to the narrative. They're top-heavy when it comes to making decisions and morale. Everything beneath Heroic-Tier is chaff. Masters are valuable, but still a resource, and Adepts—forget about it. It's not even a crab bucket. They're meant to die. They're conditioned to risk it all and do it again. Everything is built to serve or steal a seat from someone above, and those on top do everything they can to make sure everyone beneath them is willing to spend themselves because there is the battle after the battle to worry about. If you get home and you lost, well, it's time to push that responsibility to someone else. And that's not a choice. Even if Compact or the vampires were being led by someone lenient, someone who diverges from the cultural norm, then we still have Lord Scorn to consider—and this war is more than just business for him.”
A loud rumble of laughter shook the room. Heads turned upward, but Shiv's gaze fell upon its source before anyone else's. Poverty, Dragon-Broker of Loans and Commerce, cleaned his crystalline monocle until it was glittering amidst the black. The Coalition's Forum was an expansive space, now shaped like an upraised coliseum with rows of seating that grew larger and larger the further outward they were, with the ceiling being well over two kilometers high to accommodate even the largest of dragons and other monstrous beings. Enchantments allowed weaker Pathbearers to project their voice throughout the entire chamber, and flame-sculpted illusions presented their image as a flaming imprint upon the static core of the forum.
Poverty took his time, drawing out every scrub as he pushed his monocle past the mere act of shining into an exaggerated performance of his obsessive-compulsive nature. “More than just business is right. The Brokerage has received another bid from Vulketh: about 3.5% of High Harbor's Gross Domestic Product in mithril. They merely ask that we give them a way into Piety and set the Gate ablaze from its foundations. We were offered the position of a lesser partner at first, then a second defensive partner, and now with some stock options included. I expect the next offensive will see us granted specific privileges on Scorn’s High Court. Perhaps we will even get the vaunted pleasure of being invited into Vultketh ourselves, which would make us four some of the few outer-dimension Pathbearers to have been bestowed such a pass.”
“And I trust the Brokerage responded with offense and rejected the offer?” Shiv knew the answer, but this was a performance, and he had his part as well. The Dragon-Brokers were perhaps the most self-interested people in the Gate. They were going to use this to their advantage, but the actual discussion had already been ongoing. Right now, Piety needed to present specific weaknesses for everyone in attendance to notice and mention. Whispers and rumors would spread, and then would come the saboteurs—like fleas to a web.
“What brokers would we be if we didn't consider all possibilities? Though Gate Piety has proven itself promising, if nothing else, promise alone is not enough to secure a perfect alliance. We are bankers, my boy. Bankers require one thing: return on capital. For now, the offer is being weighed against none but the theoretical promise that you can give us far more. Even that paltry little mine you have here hasn't delivered upon its first shipment yet, and it's a month overdue. That alone is enough to inspire worry in my old, withered heart.” Poverty sighed—and he sounded almost genuine. “Though I loathe to bring up such lamentable affairs in front of all my fellow representatives, a month is a month, friends. Gate Piety's militaristic might is impressive indeed for a mere city-state, and the Favored Three are remarkable Pathbearers who will elevate any nation they commit to. But if they can hold their own is another question, and it is a question that I am not beholden to.” Finally, he placed his monocle back in front of his right eye and looked down at the Gate Lord. “I ask that a counteroffer be made.”
Uva glowered at the dragon. Adam glared. Shiv just sneered. The three of them played their part, each of them pretending to seethe—except for Uva's case, in which she was always in a state of semi-seethery.
“So we will,” Shiv declared, adding a slight snort to signal his disgust. “So we will. It will be discussed in private. We will not be out-fought by the invaders, and guess what? We're not going to be out-bid by them either. I won't lie: I have no idea what High Harbor's, uh, Gross Domestic Product is, but 3.5% sounds pretty hefty. On the other hand, how exactly are you expecting to move that kind of money? We will naturally not allow you to use our Slipgate once you decide to attack us from within. Piety will be collapsed before we let it slip out of our hands. Remember this: Gate Piety is going to stay ours, and the moment it isn't ours, it's gonna die. That's how this place stands: it’s us or no one else.”
That was the only part of the drama that had any grounding in truth. Gate Piety would be destroyed if it was lost, but their Slipgate would be retained, and it was practically as valuable as the Gate itself, even with all its Unique skills. The Slipgate was what made Gate Piety so lucrative, after all: a free port capable of accessing any point on Integrated Earth and beyond, so long as the requisite dimensional frequencies were provided, of course.
“Afterward, then,” Poverty chuckled, planting the trap in full.
In truth, the arrangements had already been struck. Forty percent of Piety's earnings went toward the Dragon-Brokers as a sort of tax in exchange for loans and other resources. But the benefits went beyond that. Gate Piety was a hyper-accessible free port, thanks to the Slipgate. That meant it didn't need to tax anyone else. Everyone could enjoy a raucous time at one of the Brokerage-owned establishments, and there wasn't even any money laundering needed. Everything was pristine: copacetic for practically all parties involved. International, global, trans-dimensional.
The only cost was philosophical, moral, and cultural: binding oneself to a group of amoral merchants. Allowing drugs, prostitution, and gambling to fester within the Gate sowed the seeds for a certain kind of atmosphere to flourish, and the indenturements of the weak-minded veered too close to slavery for anyone's liking but the Dragon-Brokers themselves.
But that was the nature of politics. You chose the lesser evil so that you could borrow its strength and kill the greater evil, or so the story went. Usually, the lesser evil tainted you along the way, and by the time you were strong enough to actually pursue that Utopia once envisioned in your yesteryear of innocence... there wasn't much of that innocence left in you to actually do the deed. Shiv was more than aware of that, along with his own moral weaknesses in regards to corruption and spiteful wrath.
Hence, Adam had a final say when it came to the Dragon-Broker affairs—for he was the Demigod of Heroism after all, and if he could find a way to co-exist in a garden of sin, then Shiv's objections could only come as a distant second.
Uva loudly flipped a page, and the audio-visual enchantments of the forum narrowed in on her. “If no other representatives have anything to declare regarding the after-action of the third offense, then we are to move on to the following items—”
“I have an objection, Seeker! I have one!”
Uva's face didn't change, but she gripped the pages ever tighter, tight enough to cut clean through the paper and drive the edges of her eldritch physiology against each other like blades gliding against blades. “Yes… Representative Stranger? What is the matter?”
Projected via Divination and Dimensionality across a wall at the far end of the coliseum, the Stranger's Supplicant loomed like a distant mountain range in the shape of two steepled hands fused at the wrists, the many golden eyes covering it glittering amidst the static black and violet canvas like a series of golden constellations. The Stranger loudly cleared his nonexistent throat as his Avatar began summoning a series of monocles, each larger than Poverty’s entire quarter-kilometer-length body, into existence around it. It took a full minute of equipping and adjusting the monocles before the hands of the Supplicant unfolded to reveal the colossal eye at its center—also wearing a monocle—and summoned an even larger set of printed documents into existence.
As the Supplicant began flipping through the stack of papers that could crush the Yellowstone capital flat, Uva growled telepathically, casting the message straight to Shiv and no one else: Let us kill him.
Shiv cringed in sympathy. Look, Uva, I know you want to. I wanna kill him a lot of the time too. But he's useful. He's the reason why we don't get ambushed by more eldritch bullshit. Better the Outsider we know than the Outsiders we don’t, right?
Her pupils narrowed down to pinpricks, and Shiv empathized. He really did, but he also meant every word. The Stranger's change was dramatic and astronomical; with every passing day, he drew closer to being a mortal god—a lecherous, annoying, sour-puss of a god at that, but still something that could be dealt with. Someone that, if not capable of adhering to reason, at least understood the concept of it.
Someday, she whispered to Shiv. Someday, I will hollow out his mind and use his flesh to incubate my Terrorspawn. When that is done, my forgiveness will naturally follow.
You are a sweet, noble, and sensual woman, and I want you to know that I respect that deeply, Shiv said, intending only a quarter percent of sarcasm.
“The representative of the Stranger’s Garden has the floor,” the Culturist declared with a flourishing gesture, a slight smirk adorning his face.
“Thank you, Non-Horse,” the Stranger blared through his Supplicant.
The Culturist’s smirk died a little, and he angled his head to fire a stare of pure annoyance at Shiv.
He shrugged, conveying a message of: Hey, don't look at me like that. I had a chance to fuck with you and an eldritch god at the same time, and I took it. You can't blame me.
But as was custom, everyone did blame Shiv. Everything was always his fault, except when things went right. Then it was Adam's glory.
Adam, Adam, Adam.
Being an emissary is kind of ass sometimes.
“My matter of concern is of great importance. The Garden has not been tended to socially and emotionally for the past month. I am asking about Roland Arrow. Where is the Starhawk's Avatar? Where is he? He has missed our monthly scheduled discussion.”
Of all the bullshit the Stranger could have brought up, this wasn't what Shiv had expected. In truth, though, he should have expected this. Roland was practically the only thing remotely resembling a friend for the Stranger—a ridiculous, one-sided friendship, as Roland hadn't nearly forgiven the Stranger for the pain and death he inflicted on Blackedge while the town was stuck in his dimension. Even so, for the safety of the Gate and the people within, he put up with this displeasure and amused the Stranger every month by bringing him news and fulfilling slight, albeit nonsensical, demands.
Last month, for instance, the Stranger demanded 10,000 bouquets. The moment Roland somehow managed to assemble and bring them in, the Stranger called him a fool because the bouquets were not heart-shaped, despite the Stranger clearly declaring that he wanted heart-shaped bouquets. Apparently, he'd retroactively changed his preference, but since he didn't deign to inform Roland, it was still Roland's fault for not hearing the retroactive decree issued by the Stranger to his Fingerlings.
Such was the joy of amusing an Outsider—even one transitioning out of its eldritch nature.
And of all the times he indulged in nonsense and incoherence, he chose today, of all days, to bring forth something the Favored Three were trying to avoid: Roland's Delve.
Three days. Three days without the Dread Horizon. Three days without Gate Piety’s premier warrior and supreme commander. Basically an eternity.
The forum became a pendulum. Its head swung over to the Supplicant, digested his words, and then struck back, whipping toward the Three as they sought for a response.
And where the Favored Three were unified in performance when it came to the Dragon-Brokers, they fractured in three separate reactions on the topic of Roland. Uva held her poker face, but her hesitation betrayed an unease. Saying nothing sometimes was just as loud and revealing as howling the truth at the top of one's lungs. Adam tensed visibly, and his eyes grew wide. He looked like he wanted to smite the Stranger right then and there. Uva's grudge transferred over to him without a word exchanged.
But Shiv was versed in these conflicts. Social affairs were volatile and dynamic, and often the art was about manipulating the absurd and giving people something to think about—a packaged truth that went down easy and provoked little thought in the aftermath.
With a room filled with politicians and diplomats, Social Skills were present aplenty, and the most common of which was lie detection. After all, no one lied better than a politician, and no one learned how to skirt a lie better than a politician, even an amateur politician.
Shiv had no intention of staying an amateur for long. He rose again, holding up his hands so the Culturist could declare his presence. Once that happened, he spoke, and he spoke along the edges of the truth, carefully threading that thin tightrope so he wouldn't topple one way or another toward revealing too much or too little.
“The Dread Horizon sends his apologies, but he's indisposed right now. Something to do with the offensives at hand.” Shiv licked his lips and began to pace, choosing to let slip a bit of his discomfort but using it to mask the actual truth. “What I'm about to say can't leave this forum.” Which meant that every word would be spread across the entirety of Integrated Earth and likely beyond as soon as this session came to an end. “Town Lord Arrow is in the process of creating a weapon. I see your faces and I read your confusion, but understand I can't reveal more than that. This weapon is meant to be used on our enemies, and the more people that know about this weapon, the less its effectiveness will take hold. I'm sure that some of you understand the theoretical developments of retro-memetics in the field of Chrono-Psychomancy.”
This was bullshit, but it wasn't complete bullshit. It was grounded in two truths: Roland was retroactively changing things because he was facing his Respec Delve. Respec was all about shifting bits from one skill to another in the broadest of perspectives. This was, effectively, the alteration of one's own history on a fine level.
The other truth was retro-memetics itself. That was a field of study, a highly experimental field of study conducted by the Inquisition, a field of study that Shiv was now a part of, as he was among the rare few who had a fused Psychomancy-Chronomancy skill.
As such, the representatives of the Republic cringed and would doubtlessly squeal to their superiors, who would squeal to their superiors, who would squeal to the Inquisition, who would squeal at Shiv, and finally to Veronica above him. Jessica would likely be squealed to as well, but she would pick her nose and shrug while promising to beat the Deathless half to death as a lesson, as if she wasn't planning to do that anyway.
The other representatives lacked context for the greater faux pas at hand, but they still had their own senses, and they could see how the Yellowstone diplomats were responding. Even Captain Espanda looked like she wanted to melt where she sat.
Yeah, that's right. Focus on my security breach, not Roland's potential Delve.
Gardener of Doubt 99 > 100 (Skill Evolution Imminent)
But despite his calculated maneuver, there was one part he failed to anticipate, one part that slipped his mind. The Stranger was an asocial creature in practically every regard, and therefore completely missed and went unaffected by the mind games being played. “This does not matter. Tell Roland Arrow to come to my Garden tomorrow. If he cannot be here, then I demand someone else come and help with my Garden, but I want Roland Arrow. I have changed my mind retroactively. Roland Arrow must come. If he does not come, I will be very upset, and Gate Piety will not like it when I become upset. I am already upset. I have been upset for a while.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Shiv muttered under his breath.
Let us kill him, Uva suggested again.
Yes, Adam joined in this time. We can beat him. Eventually. I’ll command the orcs to join in.
Shiv was so close to giving in, so close to choosing violence, but the Harbinger inside him had to be a mature godsdamn adult. It had to pull him back from the brink. It never let him have any fun anymore. “Your fun will lead to the compromise of your Gate. You do not turn away assets. You use and bend things to your advantage, and right now you are not bending things to your advantage. You need to engage with this idiot on the same level.”
How am I supposed to do that? Shiv asked.
“Behave as you do without my presence guiding you.”
Nihilist: And the rest of us just don’t matter, eh? Cunt.
“Yeah, alright, we’ll let him know,” Shiv ground out vocally.
The Supplicant curled its fingers at Shiv. “Have him be there.”
“That’s up to him,” Shiv shot back.
“No.” The Stranger complained like a toddler. Or an asshole. Same thing, really. “Have him be there. And tell him I was mad.”
“Sure thing, buddy,” Shiv said through clenched teeth. “I'll make sure he shows up.”
Once more, the Favored Three shared a look, and that look communicated a single word: Shit.
“If that is all the representative from the Stranger's Garden has to declare, then let us move on to additional items. Next on the itinerary: Economic Development—” The Culturist froze as he flipped through the pages and did several double takes in quick succession. “I… Hmmm.”
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked, concern clear in his voice.
“Forgive me for being so brazen, but Emissary Shiv, were you perhaps in a jestful mood and decided to change one of the items?”
The Culturist's question caught Shiv off guard. “No, I didn't touch the list. Why would I do that? Actually, why are you blaming me?”
“Because try as I might, I can't imagine nor envision either Legend-Operative Mettabon nor Legend-Paragon Arrow writing the words ‘open dog brothel’ as the premier economic item we have to contend.”
The Culturist nearly choked on his own spit. Adam did choke on his own spit. Uva dropped her papers in a signal of emotional surrender.
Today was going to be one of those days.
“What?” Shiv murmured.
“Sorry, sorry, I submitted that!” A loud voice barked from a few dozen meters away. Shiv looked across the vast, empty expanse at the center of the forum to a few rows behind the Yellowstone Republic's representatives in the first row and found his senses settling on Five. “Ahem. Might I be able to speak?”
The Culturist's right eye twitched. “Yes, the representative of New Albion—”
“I'm not representing New Albion. This is a personal matter. Fellow Pathbearers, we all have needs, we all have wants, and I'm well aware that your wants and needs likely don't align with mine. After all, most of you”—his eyes settled on Jane and quickly turned away—”don't have a taste for mating with humanoid dogs, and just the same, I don't have any taste for mating with non-dog-shaped entities. With the significant lack of Canis as well as awakened dogs on Integrated Earth, I find myself in a dire situation. Hence—dog brothel. So I can train and awaken a desired mate.”
Shiv's flesh cracked and spewed Vitae into the air. His mind teetered on the brink of total collapse as he unwillingly processed that information and quickly found a point of ethical concern. “Wait, I guess I get this might not be zoophilia in your case, but isn't that just also grooming if you actively get a dog you like to awaken so it can be your mate? And don’t most dogs just live a few years? So… pedophilic grooming.”
“I, uh…” Five coughed.
Everyone was staring at him now.
Uva was wrapping an elongated arm around her neck to use as a literal noose—and her spiderlings were doing the same for each other.
A groan of despair leaked out of Adam. “Culturist—an adjustment to the order of items. Let’s finish cementing a few laws for our constitution relating to relational ethics…”
And to serve as the perfect unwelcome bookends for this series of events, Shiv glimpsed the Faceless Queen hovering over Five and waving at him. She wanted to talk again—and somehow, he was less excited about that than a potential decree to legalize dog pimping in specific instances.
Just one of those days.
Just one of those felling days.